Harvey Behavioral Interview
Role: Software Engineer
Harvey's behavioral round assesses cultural alignment across three core values: Decisiveness, Simplicity, and Job's Not Finished (JNF). Interviewers look for engineers who move fast, take ownership, and stay focused on customer impact — specifically in the context of building AI for legal professionals.
Harvey's Three Core Values
1. Decisiveness
"Deliberate action over ivory tower intellectualization."
Harvey values speed and pragmatism. They use the internal phrase "taking the square root of the weather" — assess the situation quickly, decide, and move. Candidates should demonstrate a bias toward action even under uncertainty.
Sample questions:
- Tell me about a time you had to make a significant technical decision with incomplete information. What did you do?
- Describe a situation where you moved quickly on something and it turned out to be wrong. How did you handle it?
- Give me an example of when you pushed back on a process that was slowing your team down.
2. Simplicity
"Simplicity scales."
Harvey believes the best engineers strip complexity down to first principles. They want people who can take hard problems — AI, legal workflows, enterprise software — and identify the clearest path through them.
Sample questions:
- Tell me about a system or codebase you simplified. What was the before and after?
- Describe a time you resisted over-engineering a solution. How did you decide what was "enough"?
- Walk me through how you'd explain a complex technical concept to a non-technical lawyer who is your primary user.
3. Job's Not Finished (JNF)
"No one owes us anything — we have to earn the opportunities ahead of us."
Harvey wants engineers who don't coast. This means shipping meaningful work early, continuously raising the bar, and staying genuinely curious about customers and their problems — even without a legal background.
Sample questions:
- Tell me about a project where you went beyond the spec or expectation. What drove you?
- Describe a time you identified a problem no one had asked you to solve and fixed it anyway.
- How do you stay current in a fast-moving technical area? Give a specific example of something you taught yourself recently.
Customer Curiosity (Cross-Cutting Theme)
Harvey's users are lawyers and legal professionals — a domain most engineers haven't worked in. Interviewers specifically probe for intellectual curiosity and openness to learning unfamiliar domains.
Sample questions:
- Tell me about a time you had to deeply understand a domain you knew nothing about in order to build the right product.
- How do you approach learning what your users actually need vs. what they say they need?
- Describe a time when customer feedback significantly changed your technical direction.
Handling Ambiguity
Given that Harvey is an early-stage AI company building in a space with no clear playbook, they heavily value comfort with uncertainty.
Sample questions:
- Tell me about the most ambiguous project you've worked on. How did you create structure?
- Describe a time requirements changed significantly mid-project. How did you adapt?
- Give an example of when you had to align stakeholders who disagreed on the right direction.
STAR Format
Structure every answer using STAR:
- Situation: Set the context briefly (1–2 sentences)
- Task: What you were responsible for
- Action: What you specifically did — use "I", not "we"
- Result: Quantified outcome where possible, and what you learned
Keep answers to 2–3 minutes. Harvey interviewers will probe on vague answers — be specific about your individual contribution and the measurable impact.
What to Avoid
- Generic answers not grounded in a specific story
- Attributing outcomes entirely to the team ("we did X") without owning your role
- Over-explaining the situation at the expense of the action and result
- Answers that show risk-aversion — Harvey wants people who move, not people who wait for certainty